


the things we leave behind

by nightingvle



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Character Study, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 08:44:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18989215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightingvle/pseuds/nightingvle
Summary: in which max finds time to contemplate amidst the ongoing war





	the things we leave behind

The rum burns her throat as it goes down—like that of a flame, consuming all the budding anger and resentment once threatening to drown her. Taking another swig, she relishes in the sensation it brings and hopes to forget the memory causing her so much pain.

It was a mere glimpse she had stolen, having turned her gaze elsewhere once she realized what she was seeing, but it destroyed her all the same. To see Eleanor kiss him in such a way, to hear the promises she offered him and to know he was enough for her, something Max never was, brought about something she had thought herself rid of long ago.

She had once despised Eleanor for what she had done, for abandoning the connection between them for an island that could never offer her the same. Now, she wonders if that Max would hate what she herself has become—giving up her own friend and in doing so, betraying Anne’s trust, throwing away everything they had built together, and all for her own ambitions. She has become everything she used to hate, and knows the answer to her question deep down.

She thinks of Anne, the two now being on opposite sides of the war, and wonders if she feels just as Max did all that time ago, wonders if she’s taught her a lesson just as Eleanor did to her. The knowledge that her betrayal could have changed Anne is enough to twist her heart with grief. For she had spent far too long helping the woman pick up her broken pieces, something she had prided herself on, and the idea of Anne losing the softness she kept hidden deep down, of all of that being for nothing was too much to bear.

Max could handle the pirate harboring resentment just as she herself once held for Eleanor, had even prepared for it, but the thought of Anne losing herself once more, and all because of her, is an outcome she could never accept. 

Her fingers dance across the empty bottle’s rim as she drowns in distant memories. The bottle nearly tips over, coming close to being nothing more than a broken mess for her to clean up. Her fingers stop their twirling as she ponders over the future, wondering if her sacrifices would some day be for nothing, if the day would come for the island to be nothing more than broken pieces to clean up. Had Eleanor been troubled by such things when impossible choices were to be made?

Abandoning her drinking for the night, the woman lets herself fall into the fluffy sheets, staring up at the ceiling just as she had the night Eleanor betrayed her, thinking back to the girl who only wished to leave Nassau behind with her love, to escape the chains that bound her and find freedom.

_“Eleanor, this place is just sand! It cannot love you back!” She could hear the desperation in her own voice, but she could not bring herself to care—her lover had to know she was worth leaving her kingdom behind for, “You know this, you must know this.”_

She had truly believed the words she spoke that night, could not fathom the possibility of betraying her other half for something as insignificant as sand. And here she is, plagued with memories of doing just that. It was Eleanor who taught her to favor ambition over love, something she picked up quite well. She has sacrificed far too much to be where she is now, and will not apologize for her actions. But that did not stop her thoughts from drifting to a world where she had stayed with Anne, a world where they fought side by side in this war, a life where she would choose love over power just as the old Max would have done.

That version of her is a ghost now—a part of herself she chose to leave behind that night, but she mourns that girl all the same.


End file.
